Biased Education

College Kids Speak With a 6’5″ Chinese Woman

Published by Papa Giorgio

FPIW visited the campus of the University of Washington to see if students would affirm or reject Joseph Backholm’s new chosen identity: a 6’5″ Chinese woman.

I think the really important part is at the end when it is pointed out that how are these people going to make the real [tough] decisions in life than truly matter if they cannot deal with simple realities. I can see this thinking with How Obama deals with foreign affairs. This brings to mind as well the recently “famous” dragon-lady, which is a man mutilating his body to become a female… wait for it… dragon. I have more on this in my Transspecies post, but Gay Patriot ends his post on the matter with this:

  • So, does this mean that businesses will be required to provide this creature with a sunny rock to warm itself in the afternoon sun on? Will states that exempt businesses from having to cater to this be subject to boycotts in services of the LGBQTAR (As in ‘Reptilian’) coalition of the perpetually aggrieved?

Earlier I highlighted a video where “College Kids Speak With a 6’5″ Chinese Woman,” but there are other videos in line with this thinking from The Family Policy Institute of Washington.

We took to the streets of Seattle to see if people actually oppose all discrimination, or if they just oppose *some* discrimination.

The Family Policy Institute of Washington asks Seattle residents if there are any limits to the way someone can self-identify.

Do college kids think there’s a difference between men and women? FPIW visited Seattle University to find out.

Two Recent Examples of Gay Fascism by Government

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here is a story sure to make parents… most parents… mad. But mad enough to stop voting Democrat? I doubt it. You are digging your own graves. Here is the continuation of the above video via The Blaze (this story is related to intersectional feminism):

The mother of a Tampa, Florida, seventh-grader is speaking out after finding an assignment given to her 12-year-old daughter and other students in Spanish class at Monroe Junior High.

The form asked, “How much privilege do you have? Circle the boxes that apply to you.”

The categories on the form listed “Race,” “Skin Color,” “Religion,” “Sex,” “Gender,” “Sexual Orientation” and “Disability.”

The options under gender included, “cisgendered,” “transgendered” or “genderqueer.”

Moonbattery has this story of a 4-year old being kicked out of preschool because the parents were questioning the pro-gay/transgender materials:

To construct utopia, thought criminals associated with resistance to the LGBT agenda must be dealt with severely — even if they are only 4 years old:

A Colorado preschool has booted a 4-year-old after her parent’s questioned the administration about its curriculum promoting homosexuality and transgenderism.

R.B Sinclair told the Denver Post that she wanted her daughter excused from classroom discussions on sex and gender, because she sees it as sex education.

She feels her daughter is too young for the discussions offered at the Montview Community Preschool & Kindergarten in Denver. …

Sinclair says one day her daughter came home worried that her dad might no longer like girls.

She met with the principal over concerns about the books being read in class, including ones that told the stories about same-sex couples and worms unsure about their gender.

School officials from the privately run parent cooperative explained the stories were part of the school’s anti-bias curriculum, and because the discussions are sprinkled through the day’s activities, they told her that opting out was not possible.

No doubt. Even math class probably features full-throated endorsements of the homosexual lifestyle — always assuming that schools still have math class….

Democrat Gay Fascism

The Resurgent ends their excellent article on this thus:

And for all those parents whose children are in the Colorado public schools, you have been warned. Your teachers have been trained to advance the same agenda in a classroom near you.

I suppose that is not surprising since we know have satanist coloring books available for students in Colorado, thanks to spineless school officials who don’t know the difference between the most influential book in the history of the world and a coloring book that denies the existence of God while encouraging kids to color inside the lines.

Where, oh where, have all the adults gone?

Censorship at Central High School In Philadelphia

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is actually an older story by a couple of months… however, this is the first time I have heard of it and was more-than-happy to share with people Michael Moroz’s story and his intelligence and clarity on issues. I have to agree with Prager, young men like Michael do give me hope for our country. The abatement of free speech or counter-points is something akin to totalitarian governments AND I guess, schools. I just posted before this post on similar issues, see “…But Then I Started College.”

…But Then I Started College

Published by Papa Giorgio

This comes via the Harvard Crimson… which will surely be shut down do to it violating the feelings of a minority of students (h/t to Twitchy & Truth Revolt):

I used to believe that open discourse was a value all Americans hold dear. I presumed that when asked about what makes America so unique, many Americans would respond that our pluralistic society is the foundation of so much of our success. That it was understood that without a marketplace of ideas, our society simply could not flourish.

But then I started college.

Since the beginning of my freshman year, I have come to believe that a more fitting way to describe the current culture on college campuses is a culture defined not by open expression—but by sensitivity. This undue focus on feelings has caused the college campus to often feel like a place where one has to monitor every syllable that is uttered to ensure that it could not under any circumstance offend anyone to the slightest degree. It sometimes feels as though pluralism has become an antiquated concept. Facts and history have been discarded, and instead feelings have been deemed to be the criteria that determine whether words and actions are acceptable.

It is important to have organizations and movements on college campuses that work toward protecting individuals’ identities. The past few decades have witnessed an explosion of new identities, and students should become aware of and respect the plethora of new identities that have recently emerged. But many of these movements have gone too far.

Take the University of New Hampshire’s “Bias-Free Language Guide.” The list was compiled to inform students of words that are considered offensive in conversation. According to the guide, which was removed from the school’s website a few months ago after it incited controversy, the word “American” is unacceptable, for it fails to recognize people of South American origin. “American,” it argues, should be replaced with “resident of the U.S.” The words “senior citizens,” “older people,” and “elders” should also be eliminated, and instead replaced with “people of advanced age” and “old people.” If we’re at a point where it is offensive to say that your 90-year-old grandparent is a senior citizen, it seems that pretty soon, there may not be any neutral words left.

[….]

In a class I attended earlier this semester, a large portion of the first meeting was devoted to compiling a list of rules for class discussion. A student contended that as a woman, she would be unable to sit across from a student who declared that he was strongly against abortion, and the other students in the seminar vigorously defended this declaration. The professor remained silent. In a recent conversation with peers, I posed a question about a verse from the Bible. A Harvard employee in the room immediately interjected, informing me that we were in a safe space and I was thus not permitted to discuss the controversial biblical passage. And these are just stories from the past three months.

The assaults on free expression have dire consequences. The rise of the microagression movement has been reported to be detrimental to mental health on campus. Students’ emotional distress is increasing as educators presume that fragile undergraduates need to be protected from any form of dissent. Administrators must recognize that the current restrictions are incompatible with the very premise and goal of an education.

It is time to stop focusing on feelings as the criteria for speech and actions on the college campus.

(More by Rachel E. Huebner)

While we are on the topic of censorship… Dennis Prager gives us an update to Marquette University’s Censorship of Professor John McAdams and other students:

This next video brings a damning aspect to university campuses in that it speaks to the worst countries for freedom of speech:

Abraham Lincoln a Democrat? (Old Story)

Published by Papa Giorgio

The Daily Caller notes the response from the university:

As The Daily Caller previously reported, a Northeastern Illinois University building contains a plaque dedicated to Abraham Lincoln that erroneously identifies the first Republican president as a Democrat.

NEIU’s response? No mistake was made, because Lincoln is actually a “democrat,” in the sense that he supported democracy.

“According to building archives, the word democrat was used because Lincoln was an advocate for democracy—the political or social equality of all people,” an NEIU spokesperson told The Daily Caller in a statement. “The word was not chosen to reflect a political affiliation.”

Over 96-Percent of Cornell Political Donations Went to Democrats

Published by Papa Giorgio

For a good summary of the topic via the audio, see Wintery Knight’s post on the subject. Here is an excerpt from the Cornell Daily Sun:

Of the nearly $600,000 Cornell’s faculty donated to political candidates or parties in the past four years, over 96 percent has gone to fund Democratic campaigns, while only 15 of the 323 donors gave to conservative causes.

The Sun’s analysis of Federal Election Committee data reveals that from 2011 to 2014, Cornell’s faculty donated $573,659 to Democrats, $16,360 to Republicans and $2,950 to Independents. Each of Cornell’s 13 schools — both graduate and undergraduate — slanted heavily to the left. In the College of Arts and Sciences, 99 percent of the $183,644 donated went to liberal campaigns. The law school demonstrated the strongest conservative showing, with nearly 26 percent of its approximately $20,000 worth of donations going to Republicans.

Almost one-third of donations made over the past four years went to 2012 presidential campaigns. More than 94 percent of the $200,000 Cornellians contributed to the presidential race went to the Obama Victory Fund, while the Romney Victory Fund received under four percent of these funds…

[….]

…Jacobson said he believes this lack of diversity is actually most damaging to liberal students, who leave college without having to defend their views and enter a world where “Republicans control both houses of Congress and most state legislatures and governorships.”

“Such homogeneity in thought process at the professorial level is not conducive to intellectual rigor. That harms liberal students more than anyone, because they have a comfort zone of political acceptance which does not exist in a real world,” he said. “Over the years, I have observed that openly conservative students have to be better prepared for argument than their liberal counterparts and that process prepares them for life better than being intellectually coddled.”

Thompson agreed, saying that he, as a conservative student in the College of Arts and Sciences, has a chance almost every day to hone and defend his own beliefs, while many liberal students never experience a “trial by fire” test of their own values.

“I actually think that students on campus on the right-end of the political spectrum are stronger and more able to confront challenges to their viewpoints after they leave here, so I think Cornell is actually failing students in that way as well, they’re not providing students with an alternative point of view,” he said.

Jacobson called on the administration to recognize the value and necessity of diversity of thought in Cornell’s faculty.

“Diversity at Cornell focuses on gender, race and ethnicity as a proxy for intellectual diversity. That is inadequate as an objective matter because it has not resulted in a diversity of political thought,” Jacobson said. “If Cornell truly believes that diversity of thought fosters the educational experience, then it should include political diversity in its mandated diversity goals.”

Some items mentioned in the audio by Dennis Prager can be expanded on by the following links:

✦ Political correctness devastates UCLA graduate programs, via Heather MacDonald;

✦ Also, the bias of professors are evident in the example of percentages of Democratic versus Republican faculty ~ here is a bit from that post:

One of my favorite clips from IndoctrinateU, is this one by a liberal professor that echoes the above video by pointing out the intellectual laziness created by “labeling” people who “offend” them:

Video Description:

A liberal professor interviewed in Indoctrinate U explains that protecting and teaching from one ideological viewpoint insulates students who are liberal to properly defend and coherently explain their views in the real world — outside the classroom. This excerpt is taken from two parts, Part One is here, and Part Two is here. (Posted by: Religio-Political Talk)

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit his site… as well as Prager Univesity!

2-Quotes from An Early Salvo in the Culture War ~ Allan Bloom

Published by Papa Giorgio

I just wanted to catalog two quotes by a Jewish (non-religious), gay, anti-conservative professor, and then post some excerpts from a review of the book.

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. If this belief is put to the test, one can count on the students’ reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the proposition as not self-evident astonishes them. … The relativity of truth is … a moral postulate, the condition of a free society, or so they see it. … The danger they have been taught to fear is not error but intolerance. Relativism is necessary to openness; and this is the virtue, the only virtue, which all primary education for more than fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating. Openness — and the relativism that makes it plausible — is the great insight of our times. … The study of history and of culture teaches that all the world was mad in the past; men always thought they were right, and that led to wars, persecutions, slavery, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinism. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all.

[….]

In the United States, practically speaking, the Bible was the only common culture, one that united the simple and the sophisticated, rich and poor, young and old, and—as the very model for a vision of the order of the whole of things, as well as the key to the rest of Western art, the greatest works of which were in one way or another responsive to the Bible—provided access to the seriousness of books. With its gradual and inevitable disappearance, the very idea of such a total book is disappearing. And fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise—as priests, prophets or philosophers are wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine. Contrary to what is commonly thought, without the book even the idea of the whole is lost.

Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 25, 58 (respectively).

This review comes by way of The American Conservative. I would also recommend The Weekly Standard’s anniversary review of the book.

…While I continue to learn much from Bloom, over the years I have arrived at three main judgments about the book’s relevance, its prescience, and its failings. First, Bloom was right to be concerned about the specter of relativism—though perhaps even he didn’t realize how bad it would get, particularly when one considers the reaction to his book compared to its likely reception were it published today. Second, his alarm over the threat of “multiculturalism” was misplaced and constituted a bad misreading of the zeitgeist, in which he mistook the left’s tactical use of identity politics for the rise of a new kind of communalist and even traditionalist tribalism. And, lastly, most of his readers—even today—remain incorrect in considering him to be a representative of “conservatism,” a label that he eschewed and a worldview he rejected…

[….]

What should most astonish any reader of Bloom’s Closing after 25 years is the fact that this erudite treatise about the crisis of higher education not only sat atop the bestseller list for many weeks but was at the center of an intense, lengthy, and ferocious debate during the late 1980s over education, youth, culture, and politics. In many ways, it became the most visible and weightiest salvo in what came to be known as “the culture wars,” and people of a certain generation still hold strong opinions about Bloom and his remarkable, unlikely bestseller.

Today there are many books about the crisis of higher education—while the nature of the crisis may change, higher education never seems to be out of the woods—but none before or since Bloom’s book achieved its prominence or made its author as rich and famous as a rock star. It was a book that many people bought but few read, at least not beyond a few titillating passages condemning rock-and-roll and feminism. Yet it was a book about which almost everyone with some engagement in higher education held an opinion—indeed, it was obligatory to have considered views on Bloom’s book, whether one had read it or not.

Bloom’s book was at the center of a debate—one that had been percolating well before its publication in 1987—over the nature and content of a university education. That debate intensified with the growing numbers of “diverse” populations seeking recognition on college campuses—concomitant with the rise of departments of Women’s Studies, African-American Studies, and a host of other “Studies” studies—leading to demands that the curriculum increasingly reflect contributions by non-male, non-white, non-European and even non-dead authors.

The Closing of the American Mind spawned hundreds, perhaps even thousands of responses—most of them critiques—including an article entitled “The Philosopher Despot” in Harper’s by political theorist Benjamin Barber, and the inevitably titled The Opening of the American Mind by Lawrence Levine. Partly spurred by the firestorm initiated by Bloom’s book, perennial presidential candidate Jesse Jackson led a march through the campus of Stanford University shouting through a bullhorn, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go!” Passions for campus reform ran high, and an avalanche of words, articles, denunciations, and ad hominem attacks greeted Bloom’s defense of the Western canon.

Yet the nuances of Bloom’s qualified defense of the Western canon were rarely appreciated by critics or supporters alike. While Bloom was often lumped together with E.D. Hirsch—whose Cultural Literacy was published the same year and rose to number two on the New York Times bestseller list, just behind Closing—Bloom’s argument was fundamentally different and far more philosophically challenging than Hirsch’s more mundane, if nevertheless accurate, point that educated people increasingly did not have knowledge about their own culture. Hirsch’s book spoke to anxiety about the loss of a shared literary and cultural inheritance, which today has been largely supplanted by references to a few popular television shows and sports televised on ESPN.

Bloom made an altogether different argument: American youth were increasingly raised to believe that nothing was True, that every belief was merely the expression of an opinion or preference. Americans were raised to be “cultural relativists,” with a default attitude of non-judgmentalism. Not only all other traditions but even one’s own (whatever that might be) were simply views that happened to be held by some people and could not be judged inferior or superior to any other. He bemoaned particularly the decline of household and community religious upbringing in which the worldviews of children were shaped by a comprehensive vision of the good and the true. In one arresting passage, he waxed nostalgic for the days when people cared: “It was not necessarily the best of times in America when Catholic and Protestants were suspicious of and hated one another; but at least they were taking their beliefs seriously…”

He lamented the decline of such true belief not because he personally held any religious or cultural tradition to be true—while Bloom was raised as a Jew, he was at least a skeptic, if not a committed atheist—but because he believed that such inherited belief was the source from which a deeper and more profound philosophic longing arose. It wasn’t “cultural literacy” he wanted, but rather the possibility of that liberating excitement among college-age youth that can come from realizing that one’s own inherited tradition might not be true. From that harrowing of belief can come the ultimate philosophic quest—the effort to replace mere prejudice with the quest for knowledge of the True.

Near the beginning of Closing, Bloom relates one telling story of a debate with a psychology professor during his time teaching at Cornell. Bloom’s adversary claimed, “it was his function to get rid of prejudices in his students.” Bloom compared that function to the activity of an older sibling who informs the kids that there is no Santa Claus—disillusionment and disappointment. Rather than inspiring students to replace “prejudice” with a curiosity for Truth, the mere shattering of illusion would simply leave students “passive, disconsolate, indifferent, and subject to authorities like himself.”

Bloom relates that “I found myself responding to the professor of psychology that I personally tried to teach my students prejudices, since nowadays—with the general success of his method—they had learned to doubt beliefs even before they believed in anything … One has to have the experience of really believing before one can have the thrill of liberation.” Bloom’s preferred original title—before being overruled by Simon and Schuster—was Souls Without Longing. He was above all concerned that students, in being deprived of the experience of living in their own version of Plato’s cave, would never know or experience the opportunity of philosophic ascent.

[….]

Today we live in a different age, one that so worried Bloom—an age of indifference. Institutions of higher learning have almost completely abandoned even a residual belief that there are some books and authors that an educated person should encounter. A rousing defense of a curriculum in which female, African-American, Latino, and other authors should be represented has given way to a nearly thoroughgoing indifference to the content of our students’ curricula. Academia is committed to teaching “critical thinking” and willing to allow nearly any avenue in the training of that amorphous activity, but eschews any belief that the content of what is taught will or ought to influence how a person lives.

Thus, not only is academia indifferent to whether our students become virtuous human beings (to use a word seldom to be found on today’s campuses), but it holds itself to be unconnected to their vices—thus there remains no self-examination over higher education’s role in producing the kinds of graduates who helped turn Wall Street into a high-stakes casino and our nation’s budget into a giant credit card. Today, in the name of choice, non-judgmentalism, and toleration, institutions prefer to offer the greatest possible expanse of options, in the implicit belief that every 18- to 22-year-old can responsibly fashion his or her own character unaided.

Bloom was so correct about the predictable rise of a society defined by indifference that one is entitled to conclude that were Closing published today, it would barely cause a ripple. This is not because most of academia would be inclined to agree with his arguments any more than they did in 1987. Rather, it is simply the case that hardly anyone in academe any longer thinks that curricula are worth fighting over….

[….]

Today’s academic leaders don’t believe the content of those choices has any fundamental influence on the souls of our students, most likely because it would be unfashionable to believe that they have souls. As long as everyone is tolerant of everyone else’s choices, no one can get hurt. What is today called “tolerance,” Bloom rightly understood to be more deeply a form of indifference, the extreme absence of care, leading to a society composed not only of “souls without longing” but humans treated as utilitarian bodies that are increasingly incapable of love.

(3-Part Interview)

Climate Change Indoctrination Part of Common Core “Scientism”

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager reads from the Wall Street Journals article entitled, “Schoolroom Climate Change Indoctrination“. In the article we see Federal authorities blatant power grab at indoctrinating our children.

More-and-more parents will opt to home school… or offer classroom style “counter-courses” to teach a better path at critical thinking. In The Animal Farm, Napoleon takes the puppies away from Jessie and Bluebell as soon as they are weaned to “educate” them. While this is a picture of the KGB specifically, broadly speaking it is a picture of a state large enough to indoctrinate children by choosing how to teach children versus the parents choosing at a local level.

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit:

http://www.dennisprager.com/ ~ see also: http://www.prageruniversity.com/

Here is part of the Wall Street Journal article:

While many American parents are angry about the Common Core educational standards and related student assessments in math and English, less attention is being paid to the federally driven green Common Core that is now being rolled out across the country. Under the guise of the first new K-12 science curriculum to be introduced in 15 years, the real goal seems to be to expose students to politically correct climate-change orthodoxy during their formative learning years.

The Next Generation of Science Standards were released in April 2013. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted them, including my state of New Jersey, which signed on in July 2014 and plans to phase in the new curriculum beginning with the 2016-2017 school year. The standards were designed to provide students with an internationally benchmarked science education.

While publicly billed as the result of a state-led process, the new science standards rely on a framework developed by the Washington, D.C.-based National Research Council. That is the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences that works closely with the federal government on most scientific matters.

All of the National Research Council’s work around global warming proceeds from the initial premise of its 2011 report, “America’s Climate Choices” which states that “climate change is already occurring, is based largely on human activities, and is supported by multiple lines of scientific evidence.” From the council’s perspective, the science of climate change has already been settled. Not surprisingly, global climate change is one of the disciplinary core ideas embedded in the Next Generation of Science Standards, making it required learning for students in grade, middle and high school.

The National Research Council framework for K-12 science education recommends that by the end of Grade 5, students should appreciate that rising average global temperatures will affect the lives of all humans and other organisms on the planet. By Grade 8, students should understand that the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is a major factor in global warming. And by Grade 12, students should know that global climate models are very effective in modeling, predicting and managing the current and future impact of climate change. To give one example of the council’s reach, these climate-change learning concepts have been incorporated almost verbatim into the New Jersey Department of Education model science curriculum.

Many of the background materials and classroom resources used by instructors in teaching the new curriculum are sourced from government agencies. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency has an array of ready-to-download climate-change primers for classroom use by teachers, including handouts on the link between carbon dioxide and average global temperatures and tear sheets on the causal relationship between greenhouse-gas emissions and rising sea levels.

Similarly, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Energy Department have their own Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network, or Clean, which serves as an online portal for the distribution of digital resources to help educators teach about climate change. One such learning module requires students to measure the size of their family’s carbon footprint and come up with ways to shrink it.

Relying on a climate-change curriculum and teaching materials largely sourced from federal agencies—particularly those of the current ideologically driven administration—raises a number of issues. Along with the undue authoritative weight that such government-produced documents carry in the classroom, most of the work is one-sided and presented in categorical terms, leaving no room for a balanced discussion. Moreover, too much blind trust is placed in the predictive power of long-range computer simulations, despite the weak forecasting track record of most climate models to date.

This is unfortunate because the topic of man-made global warming, properly taught, would present many teachable moments and provide an example of the scientific method in action. Precisely because the science of climate change is still just a theory, discussion would help to build student skills in critical thinking, argumentation and reasoning, which is the stated objective of the new K-12 science standards…..

…read it all…

Lack of Wealth Redistribution Is Baltimore’s Issue ~ Maryland Democrat

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via HotAir

Updated Numbers via National Review:

…Although Baltimore ranks fourth among major cities in per-pupil expenditures for districts with more than 40,000 students and spends $16,578 a year per pupil — roughly 52 percent above the national average — more than a quarter of Baltimore students fail to graduate from high school. Fewer than half of Baltimore high-school students passed the last Maryland High School Assessment test. SAT scores for Baltimore students are more than 100 points below the national average.

Yet Maryland has one of the nation’s most restrictive charter-school laws. There are just 52 charter schools statewide. In neighboring Washington, D.C., 44 percent of the city’s public-school students are educated in the District’s 112 charter schools, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Even within the public schools, choice is extremely limited in Maryland; parents are not generally allowed to send their children to schools outside their assigned district. Needless to say, any larger efforts to give parents more control over their children’s schooling — such as vouchers or tax credits — have gone nowhere….

Schools:

The Baltimore school system ranked second among the nation’s 100 largest school districts in how much it spent per pupil in fiscal year 2011, according to data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city’s $15,483 per-pupil expenditure was second to New York City’s $19,770. Rounding out the top five were Montgomery County, which spent $15,421; Milwaukee public schools at $14,244; and Prince George’s County public schools, which spent $13,775.

The Census Bureau also noted the first decrease in per-pupil spending nationally since 1977, the year the figures were first tracked….

…read more…

The public schools in Washington, D.C., spent $29,349 per pupil in the 2010-2011 school year, according to the latest data from National Center for Education Statistics, but in 2013 fully 83 percent of the eighth graders in these schools were not “proficient” in reading and 81 percent were not “proficient” in math.

These are the government schools in our nation’s capital city — where for decades politicians of both parties have obstreperously pushed for more federal involvement in education and more federal spending on education.

[….]

In 2013, students nationwide took NAEP reading and math tests. When the NCES listed the scores of public-school eighth graders in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, D.C. came in last in both subjects.

D.C. eighth graders scored an average of 248 out of 500 in reading, and Mississippi finished next to last with an average of 253.

Only 17 percent of D.C. 8th graders rated “proficient” or better in reading. In Mississippi, it was 20 percent.

In math, D.C. public-school eighth graders scored an average of 265 out of 500, and only 19 percent were rated “proficient” or better. Alabama placed next to last with an average math score of 269, with 20 percent rated “proficient” or better.

Some might argue it is unfair to compare, Washington, D.C., a single city, with an entire state. However, D.C. also does not compete well against other big cities.

The Department of Education’s Trial Urban District Assessments program compares the test results in 21 large-city school districts, including Washington, D.C.

In these assessments, the scores of students from charter schools were removed and the average reading score for D.C. public school eighth-graders dropped to 245. That was below the national large-city average of 258, and tied D.C. with Fresno for seventeenth place among the 21 big cities in the TUDA.

In math, minus the charter school students, D.C. public-school eighth graders earned an average score of 260. That was below the national large-city average of 276, and put D.C. in a tie for sixteenth place, this time with Fresno and Baltimore.

The NCES database indicates that in the 2010-2011 school year, Washington, D.C. public schools spent a total of $29,349 per pupil, ranking No. 1 in spending per pupil among the 21 large cities in the TUDA.

…read more…

The Debate Is NOT Over In West Virginia Board of Education

Published by Papa Giorgio

The debate may be over for Al Gore, most leading Democrats, and the media like the New York Times, NPR, the Chicago Tribune, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, and the like. But at least kids now have the freedom of thought to debate the issue where those surrounding them are to juvenile to consider freedom of thought (and not re-education camps) the intelligent choice!

Marc Morano Testifies Before West Virginia Board of Education:

The Daily Mail notes of this victory that deeper discussion will ensue:

Two months after withdrawing its controversial science education standards with modifications that would have asked students to question the scientific community’s assertion that global warming is caused by human greenhouse emissions, the West Virginia Board of Education voted Thursday to amend the standards once again to allow classroom debate on climate change.

Despite months of national scrutiny from media outlets, teachers and educational organizations that support scientific research proving human activity causes climate change, the board voted 6-2 to approve the newly amended standards, which will now go into effect on July 1, 2016….

[….]

…The new amendment removes both “rise and fall” and replaces it with “changes.”

Another amended standard that would have had students discuss natural forces like Milankovitch cycles and how they affect climate change was scaled back to remove language about the cycles, which are long-term changes in the Earth’s orbit often cited by those who don’t believe global warming is caused by human activity.

Linger also proposed adding language to the standards’ introduction that reemphasizes using evidence to support arguments, claims and counterclaims….

(Charleston Daily Mail)

Craig Rucker testifies before the West Virginia Board of Education:

And C-FACT has this:

“Supporters of the changes, including board members Wade Linger and Tom Campbell, argued that ‘science is never settled’ and that debate will lead students into a deeper understanding of the issue,” the paper added.

The vote represents a significant victory for student rights and for science.  The scientific method demands consideration of all data, without regard for the impact this may have on a cherished theory.  Open minds and free debate are essential to science and climate science is no exception.

When the Board voted in December to amend teaching standards to allow students to consider both sides in the climate debate, global warming pressure groups were apoplectic.

They ridiculed the Board and demanded it drop its revised standards and ban facts which question the man-made global warming narrative from the classroom.

CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker, Marc Morano, who edits CFACT’s Climate Depot news and information service and a contingent of students from CFACT Collegians chapters at the University of West Virginia and Marshall University testified before the Board, which voted in January to temporarily pull back the amended standards and further consider the matter.

CFACT also asked readers to submit comments to the Board and large numbers did.  Sources close to the West Virginia Board report that CFACT readers submitted thoughtful and persuasive comments that made a  significant impact on the proceedings.

The original standards forced students to only consider “rises” in temperature.  The amended standards substitute “changes” and permits students to consider “natural forces” as well as human activity when they study the climate.

(CFACT)

What is the University Diversity Scam? (Heather Mac Donald)

Published by Papa Giorgio

America’s campuses, particularly those in California, spend tens of millions of dollars on administrators and programs to combat issues like sexism, homophobia, and racism on campus. But are these problems in any way prevalent at our universities? Or is this diversity bureaucracy a big waste of money? Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute explains.

The U.C. System Votes To Divest From United States (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Update on final tally of votes as well as anti-Israel sentiment in a concurrent resolution, via Breitbart:

…The first resolution called for divestment from certain American companies that do business in Israel. The second resolution called for divestment from American, Mexican, Russian, Turkish, Indonesian, Brazilian, Sri Lankan, and Egyptian government bonds.

So UC Student Association just called for divestment from America. As an alum I’m very sad to see student political power wasted #UCSADivest — Max Samarov (@MaxSamarov) February 8, 2015

The student-backed board passed both divestment resolutions with an initial vote of 11 “yes” vote, 1 “no” vote, and 3 “abstentions” before a revote determined the final tally to be 9-1-6. The vote was held at UCLA’s Tom Bradley Hall. The vote comes just days after UC Davis passed a similar resolution.

[….]

At the end of the vote, pro-divestment students and activists lauded each other by saying “mabrouk” which is congratulations in Arabic..

Gateway Pundit has this horrible news out of the U.C. system.

The University of California student government approved legislation that calls on the university leaders to divest from America. The College Fix reported:

The University of California Student Association board – which represents all 233,000 students enrolled in the UC system’s 10 campuses – approved a resolution on Sunday that calls on the system’s leaders to financially divest from the United States.

The measure cited alleged human rights violations by America such as drone strikes that have killed civilians, and claimed the country’s criminal justice system is racist, among other accusations.

The “Resolution Toward Socially Responsible Investment at the University of California” passed with an overwhelming majority vote of 11-1-3.

“The government of the United States of America is engaged in drone strikes that have killed over 2,400 people in Pakistan and Yemen, many of them civilians,” the resolution stated….

…read more…